Obama's foreign policy advantage

Despite the traditional strength of the Republicans in the foreign policy domain, Mitt Romney's whole strategy has been a gaffe. Instead, it has been Obama who has neatly tied it all together, writes Thom Woodroofe.

Barack Obama is the first Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to head to the polls with a foreign policy advantage.

President Obama will go into today's final debate with a spring in his step.

Foreign policy is usually the domain of Republican candidates. Yet thanks to a number of gaffes from his opponent, the usually inconsequential topic has not only become a live issue in this election, but one of only a handful the Democrat now commands in the polls.

First there was the spectacular resignation of one of Romney's key foreign policy advisors back in May amid an internal party backlash over his sexuality.

Then there was his trip abroad with a stumble at every stop.

Before even arriving in the United Kingdom a campaign spokesman suggested in the air that Obama could not understand the unique Anglo-Saxon heritage between the two countries.

Then Romney himself questioned the very Olympics he was a guest of, opening himself to ridicule from fellow conservatives David Cameron and Boris Johnston. In the same day he even managed to forget the name of the Opposition Leader he just met and accidentally revealed a secret briefing with the MI6 intelligence chief.

As President Obama quipped last month, "You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can't visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally."

In Israel, Romney then mistakenly labelled Jerusalem the capital and insulted the economic pedigree of the Palestinians, before a final stop in Poland where his media advisor barked distastefully at reporters while at a war memorial.

But up until last week, Romney seemed to have at least stopped the bleeding from these earlier missteps.

According to a Pew Research Centre poll taken before the last debate, Romney had actually shrunk Obama's foreign policy lead from 15 points to only four since the revelation that extra security had been requested by the ambassador to Libya just prior to his assassination.

But thanks to the most fundamental of debate gaffes, this trend will now almost certainly be reversed; if not magnified, as will another poll by CBS back in August that showed that only two per cent of Americans listed foreign policy as one of the most important issues in the election.

The reality though is Romney's whole foreign policy strategy has been a gaffe.

Firstly, from the outset the Republican candidate should have identified this election would not be fought on the subtle nuances of foreign policies and focussed all his messages in the field entirely back on the economy.

Instead, it has been Obama who has neatly tied his own foreign policy priorities to an economic mantra.

In his wide-ranging 40-minute address to the Democratic National Convention last month, the only time foreign policy rated a mention was when Obama sought to exploit the differences on military spending and the cost of the war in Afghanistan as an example of how America needed to focus more on "nation-building right here at home".

Secondly, Romney should have broken with tradition and not included an indulgent overseas visit as part of his campaign or at least drastically redefined the destination.

Since 1947 when Republican frontrunner Harold Stassen took a two-month, 18-country tour around Europe such trips have become common place for candidates trying to present themselves as statesmen.

But they rarely achieve what they intend.

Even Obama's much celebrated trip in 2008 to Europe and the Middle East provided cannon fodder for McCain when it was reported the Democratic candidate wanted to speak in front of the Brandenburg Gate leading to the famous and effective "Celebrity" attack ad featuring Paris Hilton.

The visuals of the Romneys lavishly enjoying the Olympics were never going to play well to a fiscally exhausted electorate back home, let alone the details of their $75,000 a plate fundraising events along the way which in many ways were the real reason for the trip.

Indeed, perhaps the only destinations that would have truly delivered a bump in the polls would have been to the troops in Afghanistan or somewhere in Asia as opposed to Europe, anchoring Romney as not a prisoner of the past but a president of the present.

Thirdly, while he perhaps rightly overlooked a foreign policy "game changer" such as Condoleezza Rice for his running mate to instead focus on enhancing his economic narrative, he should consider naming his picks now for Secretary of State and Defence to shore up his foreign policy credentials.

Outgoing Democratic-turned-Independent Senator Joe Liebermann would make an ideal choice, increasing Romney's much needed appeal across the aisle. Former General-turned-CIA director David Petraeus should also make the Foggy Bottom shortlist as he serves out a seven-year embargo from occupying the Defence Secretary post since hanging up his uniform.

Instead odds have firmed in recent weeks on Tim Pawlenty despite him recently leaving the campaign for the private sector. Pawlenty is well known for multiple trips to Iraq and Afghanistan as Minnesota Governor, but is unlikely to bring any electoral interest and therefore advantage.

Ultimately, part of the problem for Romney is that he has crafted a foreign policy campaign strategy straight out of David Plouffe's own textbook.

In 2008, Obama was able to use imprecise rhetoric and sweeping promises to challenge the Republican status-quo emerging from an era of simplistic certainties under the Bush Doctrine.

However most of these promises have gone unfulfilled with the number of troops initially surged in Afghanistan, no outstretched hand offered to Iran, Guantanamo Bay left open for business, the number of drone attacks stepped up dramatically, extraordinary rendition continuing uninhibited, and the Kyoto Protocol collecting dust in the desk draw.

But in Obama's case the absence of predictability, let alone a doctrine, when it comes to foreign policy has weakened the ability for Romney to craft a sustained counter-narrative.

This has forced Romney to instead be mostly reactive - but as his initial comments on Benghazi and then his debate gaffe have proved this strategy has only backfired making him seem an overzealous candidate happy to "shoot first and ask later" in comparison to the calm and considered Obama.

Ultimately, if Romney was smart he either would have ignored foreign policy from the outset absent a self-styled stumble from the president putting the issue in play, or at least pursued it in a way that made him look more like a commander in chief in the process.

Now not only does he lag behind when it comes to foreign policy, but he has singlehandedly made it an issue at play in this election.

Thom Woodroofe is an associate fellow of The Asia Society. He has worked for both sides of politics in the United States and was the youngest member of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue. Follow on Twitter @thomwoodroofe. View his full profile here.

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